In a shocking revelation by a Twitter audit tool, a leading English daily reported that Pawan Kalyan has topped the list of Fake Followers on Twitter. According to the report, Pawan has 13 Lakh Eighty Thousand and Seven Hundred Eighty real followers, whereas he allegedly have 15 Lakh, Eighty Two Thousand and Two Hundred Sixty Seven ‘Fake’ followers. The report estimated that only 46 percent followers of Pawan are real whereas the rest are said to be fake.

The Twitter Audit Tool audits all the Twitter followers and assesses them on the number of tweets, followers, mutual followers and other parameters. Based on this, the tool comes to the nearest conclusion. As per the audit tool, many politicians in India have a large number of ‘Fake’ followers. Last year, the audit tool showed that only 39 percent Twitter followers of Narendra Modi are real, whereas the 61 percent followers are fake.

Among the political leaders who are having most number of real Twitter followers, Sushma Swaraj from the BJP and KTR from the TRS have topped. As per the report, Union Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj has 81 lakh, eighty thousand, four hundred and sixty original Twitter followers, whereas she has 35 lakh, Thirty Nine Thousand, Three Hundred and Ninety Seven ‘Fake’ followers. Sushma has 69 percent genuine followers on Twitter, as per the audit tool.

Telangana IT Minister KT Ramarao has equalled Sushma Swaraj as he also said to have 69 percent original followers. The audit tool said that KTR has 8 Lakh, Eighty One Thousand, Eight Hundred and Eighty Three real followers, whereas 3 Lakh, Eighty Five Thousand, One Hundred and Ninety ‘Fake’ followers.

The audit tool – not owned by Twitter – showed that AP’s Opposition leader YS Jagan has more real Twitter followers than AP CM Chandrababu Naidu. It also said AP IT Minister and Naidu’s son Nara Lokesh has only 50 percent real followers on Twitter.

On the whole, the statistics released by the audit tool is creating ripples among political circuits.